Migrant Sued Home Office for £7m With Legal Aid. A Judge Found He Was Go-Karting

News | By Matt, Editor

Over £7 million. That is what a Sri Lankan man who overstayed his student visa wanted from the Home Office, on the grounds that a few months in immigration detention had left him unable to work, unable to go out alone and in need of “round-the-clock care” for the rest of his life. A High Court judge has now found the whole thing was a fabrication. Home Office investigators filmed him driving, doing the school run and spending an hour in the gym, and online records showed him entering a go-karting competition.

Mr Justice Mansfield’s judgment, handed down on Friday, says the claim brought by Vengadeswara Raw Gopalakrishnan has been “fundamentally dishonest” since it was first raised in 2014. It ran for twelve years, with the help of legal aid. The judge called the waste of public money and court time “scandalous”.

Key facts

• Came to Britain in 2010 on a student visa, overstayed after it ran out in 2012, and lost an asylum claim in August 2013.
• Held in immigration detention from September 2013 to February 2014, then released on health grounds. Granted indefinite leave to remain in 2023.
• His schedule of loss, served in January 2026, put the claim at £7,005,572, before pension loss and other items were added.
• Between 12 May and 2 June 2026, inquiry agents hired by the Home Office filmed him driving, on the school run, at a trampoline park, in a restaurant and at the gym.
• Online records showed him taking part in a go-karting competition on 19 April 2025. Birth certificates for his children list his job as delivery driver.
• The judge found the claim fundamentally dishonest and ordered him to pay the Home Office’s costs of the whole claim.

A man who was “unable to speak”

For years the court was told a very different story. Doctors and experts instructed for the claim described a man led into appointments by the hand, almost mute, rocking and hallucinating. Reena Mathew, who acted as his “litigation friend” from 2014, presented herself as a volunteer carer from their church who visited him at the home of another family. In a statement as recent as April 2026 she said he could not prepare a meal, leave the house alone or manage money.

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Then the Home Office got hold of her own immigration file. In it she described Mr Gopalakrishnan as her spouse and the father of her children. The couple, the judgment records, had lived together since 2015 and have three children. His solicitors had told the Home Office in late May that he held no driving licence. Three days later he was filmed driving a car with Ms Mathew and the children inside.

Mr Justice Mansfield did not hold back. “I find that Ms Mathew and the Claimant acted together,” he wrote. He found that Mr Gopalakrishnan “feigned a lack of ability to communicate” so he would not be “found out” by the experts, and that the bank statements he withheld would have shown years of normal life. “It is clear to me that the Claimant’s exaggeration of his symptoms has been deliberate, calculated and for the purposes of gain from these proceedings,” the judge said.

Sri Lankan migrant who sued taxpayer for £7m saying he needed round-the-clock care after suffering in detention centre – but he'd been seen go-karting, hitting the gym and doing the school run https://t.co/acH5KuZWdr

— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) November 6, 2026

Twelve years, and the taxpayer picked up the tab

The case began in October 2013 as a judicial review against his removal to Sri Lanka. A personal injury claim was bolted on in 2014. It then sat on a six-year stay while a separate case went to the Supreme Court. By the time a ten-day trial was listed for October 2026, the Home Office was facing lawyers, a consultant psychiatrist, a care expert and an employment expert, all built on the claimant’s account.

The judge spelled out who paid for it. “On the basis of that fabrication, and with the benefit of Legal Aid, the Claimant has engaged huge resources in terms of lawyers, medical experts, care experts and employment experts in pursuit of millions of pounds in damages,” he wrote. The Home Office had been put “to much work, at taxpayer expense”. And then the line that has gone round the country: “The waste of public resources caused by the Claimant’s dishonesty over many years is scandalous.”

The Telegraph, the Independent, LBC and the Evening Standard all reported the ruling, and the story was all over X by Friday night.

A Sri Lankan migrant who sued the taxpayer for £7million claiming he needed round-the-clock care has been seen go-karting, going to the gym and doing the school run, a High Court judge has said.
Vengadeswara Raw Gopalakrishnan has been found to have 'deliberately fabricated'…

— Chrissy E (@cholatera) November 6, 2026

🚨BUSTED! Sri Lankan migrant who sued taxpayer for £7 million pounds claiming round the clock care seen go karting and hitting the gym

Vengadeswara Raw Gopalakrishnan arrived in 2010 overstayed his visa and was detained in 2013 before claiming he was left housebound with severe…

— 𝔾𝕣𝕚𝕗𝕥𝕪 (@TheGNPE) November 7, 2026

His side of it

Mr Gopalakrishnan represented himself at the hearing after his last solicitors stopped acting in August, and he no longer has legal aid. He told the court that he had been mentally unwell from 2014 to 2018 and was still taking tablets. He said seeing professionals made him very anxious and he never meant to hide anything. In a July statement he said he feared that if he showed he had got better, he would be detained again.

The judge was not persuaded. He said that explanation, “taken at face value, shows dishonesty”, because it admits hiding his recovery to get a better outcome. He offered to let Mr Gopalakrishnan give evidence on oath. On the second day he chose not to. Ms Mathew did not attend.

To be fair to the record, Mr Justice Mansfield made no finding that the original public law challenge or the false imprisonment claim were dishonest. He was not asked to rule on those. It was the personal injury claim, the part worth millions, that he found was a fabrication from the start. The claimant had already dropped the case before the hearing. He must now pay the Home Office’s costs of the whole claim up to that point, and the judge gave permission to enforce that in full.

A £7 million claim against the taxpayer, and he went go-karting. A man who overstayed his student visa and lost his asylum claim sued the Home Office, saying immigration detention in 2013 left him needing round-the-clock care. Investigators filmed him at the gym and racing… pic.twitter.com/v6u8vnhH6d

— The State of Britain (@stateofbritain1) November 6, 2026

Our view

Credit where it’s due: Home Office lawyers dug in, hired investigators and caught this. But look at the timeline. A man who had overstayed his visa sued the British public, kept the claim going for twelve years with legal aid paid for by the British public, and it fell apart only when someone checked an immigration file and pointed a camera at him. Twelve years is a long time for nobody to ask whether a man who supposedly couldn’t speak had a family, a car and a gym membership.

The costs order is the easy part. Collecting it is another matter, and nobody should hold their breath. If legal aid is going to keep paying for claims like this, then a finding of fundamental dishonesty should mean automatic repayment, and Labour should say so now rather than wait for the next one.

Should anyone found to have brought a dishonest claim against the Home Office have to pay back every penny of their legal aid? Vote in our poll below.

Sources

• Gopalakrishnan v The Home Office [2026] EWHC 2856 (KB), Mr Justice Mansfield, 6 November 2026 (National Archives Find Case Law): all judgment facts and quotes
• The Telegraph, 6 November 2026: “‘Injured’ migrant went go-karting while suing Home Office for £7m”
• The Independent, 6 November 2026; LBC, 6 November 2026; Evening Standard, 7 November 2026; Daily Mail, 6 November 2026
• Main photo: stock image of a go-kart race, not the claimant. Goh Rhy Yan / Unsplash via Wikimedia Commons, CC0

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